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All Rise...

Judge Geoffrey Miller isn't quite convinced that this documentary has all the answers, but at least it didn't go down a purposefully deceptive path.

The Charge

"We do not know the whole story of what happened on September 11th at
all."—Lorie Van Auken, "Jersey Girl"

The Case

When a movie about 9/11 is subtitled Press for Truth, I prepare myself
for the worst. We've all seen the Flash animations and extended essays; we all
have a friend eager to "educate" us on "what really
happened." The reality is that, while we may never know the complete truth
of what happened that day, the conspiracies that lurk in the recesses of
alternative and underground media hold about as much weight as an Elvis
sighting. Anyone who says otherwise has an overactive imagination.

Press for Truth starts off, simply enough, with the grief of four
9/11 widows. Brought together by their common desire to ask questions about what
and why the attacks happened, these New Jersey housewives banded together and
dubbed themselves the "Jersey Girls." Much of the film follows their
research and subsequent advocacy, culminating in their testimony to the 9/11
Commission—and subsequent criticism of the commission's findings.

The story of the Jersey Girls is powerful stuff. Before the attacks they
were simply middle class suburban housewives with husbands who worked in the
city. Their transformation into aggrieved activists fighting for answers is
stunning and dramatic. Their efforts are primarily focused on getting the
government to launch a formal investigation, which is then fulfilled with the
formation of the 9/11 Commission. But when there are still questions left
unanswered, the Jersey Girls and other victims' relatives are outraged and
demand a new investigation be conducted.

Press for Truth attempts to address these lingering questions in its
final third, and this is where it falters, veering off track into subjects only
tangentially related to 9/11 and unfounded conspiracy theories. A detour into
critiquing America's shortcomings in the war on terror that followed
9/11—in particular the failure to capture Osama Bin-Laden when he was
cornered in Tora Bora—is completely unnecessary. While the conclusions it
makes are valid, it simply isn't germane to the topic at hand. There's more than
enough material for a documentary about 9/11 without getting into America's
post-9/11 foreign policy (a subject that could fill quite a few hours of time in
and of itself).

What follows that, however, delves into territory usually staked out by
poorly designed Web sites maintained by paranoiacs. The film advances a theory
that Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, allegedly one of the funders of the 9/11
hijackers, was doing the biding of the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence agency.
This claim was, according to the film, widely reported in the Indian press,
which is true as far as I can tell. But a more important point, known by anyone
with a cursory knowledge of the region, is ignored: The long-simmering tensions
between India and Pakistan have given rise to numerous scandalous accusations in
the press. With little solid evidence to back itself up, Press for Truth
loses a big chunk of credibility.

In typical low-budget documentary fashion, Press for Truth is
primarily comprised of stock footage (prepare to see those terrorists on the
monkey bars a few more times), talking head interview shots, and a few
rudimentary original animation sequences. The production values and transfer are
clean and competent, but expect little more. Bonus material includes uncut
testimony from the 9/11 Commission hearings and a trailer.

The unfortunate turn Press for Truth takes towards theories roughly
as tenable as Time Cube doesn't undermine the real emotion behind the Jersey
Girls and the other still-living victims of 9/11; their unanswered questions are
still valid and they deserve to be answered. If Press for Truth comes up
short in providing answers, it's because just about everyone thus far has
reached a similar impasse. When it concentrates on pressing for truth, as its
title suggests, then it succeeds; when it attempts to provide the truth, it
fails.